El Explicao

Actually, this is an old story. Heriberto went to Budapest a couple of weeks ago for the opening of an exhibition of young architects from Guadalajara at Studio Gallery of György Kévés . The poster for the exhibition had a small but quite interesting text from Alvaro Morales discussing the rupture between young architects and the so called "escuela tapatía". The text was translated into Hungarian... of course we have no idea how they managed to translate words like: Jericaya or Tejuino... Hooper had an idea, to explain it like Les Luthiers: "The architects that participate in this exhibition identify themselves in things they love and hate, in their icons and things they reject, they are mexicans, they are (people that are born in the city of Guadalajara), but they don´t sleep wraped on a mexican flag, nor are they moved by the smell of a Guadalajara lost forever, and they don´t miss (a desert consisting of milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, cooked in baño María, and has a crystalized thin crust on top) or (a cold non fermented beverage made out of maize, sweetened with cane sugar and a bit of lemon and sugar...) when they are overseas."

ciao

MSE Mantecon

Once again, I have left this blog unattended for a couple of weeks, workload on the Multisensory Environment Room has been crazy! My students are working really hard to get the work done in just 5 weeks and they have experienced many real life difficulties and situations. ITESM decided to sponsor the project, instead of having external sponsors, so we had to order all materials internally. For my students this was a shock, having someone else to buy material, because they had to fill a format with a detailed description of everything. Problem was, that there were many items on that list with no model, code or complete description. They forgot to include taxes... etc.

We also have a lot of pressure because every two days are equivalent to one week of work on a normal semester. For me has also been very demanding, but I am quite happy with the results so far. For my laptop, the workload seems to have been too much! It gave out its´ soul a couple of days ago. Now I´m working on borrowed computers. Next week we´ll start building the prototypes, and we have only two weeks to finish the room.

I received this invitation for a poster competition worth 6,000 Euro for a Portuguese wine company. If you are over 21 of age, it could be a good idea to taste and enjoy bottle of their wine.

ciao

Dream Team

OK. Here's a picture of my group of students that are working on the Multisensory Environment Design at IDeSS.

ciao

Duro y Dale

Well, I have been here in Guadalajara for 2 weeks, and I haven't got much time to write. The summer course at ITESM is already in gear, and it seems that my students are also very committed to all the work involved in the project. I'll tell you more about that later. The heat in the city is almost unbearable (again we are victims of global warming) but the mexican food is amazing as always.


I received the information pack for this year's Design Lab competition from Electrolux, and it's great to see that the focus is not on innovation alone (per se) but rather on sustainable innovative solutions. That's a good way to help stop global warming! The challenge might sound "just like another sustainability design competition" but it's not:

For this 5th year of the Electrolux Design Lab competition they are seeking submissions for household appliances that are environmentally sound, commercially-viable and enable people to better live in harmony with the environment. The goal is to get the applicants to go above and beyond simple energy and water efficiency and suggest ways to foster sustainable behavior and product usage. The grand prize is €5,000 and a 6 month internship at one of Electrolux design centers.

So you see, it's not the simple eco-approach, it's about finding breakthrough innovations on sustainable practice. Check out the rules and prizes... As always, it makes sense to look at past winners too. Good luck.

ciao